Kyle Drabek signed to minor league contract by Giants
The San Francisco Giants have signed former first-round draft pick Kyle Drabek to a minor league contract and plan to audition him as both a pitcher and an infielder, the team said late Monday night.
"At our request, Drabek is taking groundballs and giving us a look at him as an infielder (as he was in high school),'' Giants general manager Bobby Evans said in a text messsage. "But we're not ruling out his continuing with us from the mound.''
Drabek, 28, is the son of 1990 National League Cy Young Award winner Doug Drabek. He was selected by the Philadelphia Phillies as the 18th overall pick in the 2006 first-year player draft and received a signing bonus of $1.55 million, but he has failed to live up to expectations in professional ball.
In 2009, the Phillies traded Drabek, catcher Travis d'Arnaud and outfielder Michael Taylor to the Toronto Blue Jays for pitcher Roy Halladay. Over parts of seven seasons with the Blue Jays, Chicago White Sox and Arizona Diamondbacks, Drabek has a major league record of 8-15 with a 5.26 ERA.
Drabek underwent Tommy John surgery as a minor leaguer with the Phillies in 2007 and had a second elbow reconstruction while pitching for the Blue Jays in 2012.
As a senior at The Woodlands High School in Texas, Drabek went 10-0 with a 1.18 ERA as a pitcher and hit .479 with six home runs as a shortstop. In 2007, Baseball America described him as "one of the best athletes'' in the Phillies' minor league system.
